Barbara Mathes Gallery is pleased to present Tadaaki Kuwayama: Early Work, 1962-1975. Since his arrival in New York from Japan in 1958, Kuwayama has produced nuanced, colorful paintings that transcend easy categorization. His subtle yet bold compositions present viewers with a unique exploration of color, surface, geometry and structure. Though related to traditional Japanese nihonga painting, Color Field and Minimalism, Kuwayama’s investigations are best considered on their own terms. This exhibition will focus on Kuwayama’s intriguing metallic paintings from the 1960s and 1970s, which combine reflective acrylic surfaces with subdivided aluminum frames.

The works presented in this exhibition were essential to the establishment of Kuwayama’s reputation in New York during the 1960s and 1970s. After immigrating to the United States, Kuwayama studied at the Art Students League in New York where he freed himself from the strictures of the nihonga tradition and, by the early 1960s, became associated with Donald Judd, Yayoi Kusama, Dan Flavin and Frank Stella, among others. Exhibitions at the Green Gallery in New York (1961, 1962) and the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich (1967, 1968) brought Kuwayama international attention, and his work was shown in several historic exhibitions, including Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1966) and New Shapes of Color at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1966). This exhibition presents an opportunity to reexamine Kuwayama’s colorful and multifaceted work of the 1960s and 1970s.

Kuwayama’s paintings create surprisingly complex relationships and effects within and between works. Untitled (TK6924-’66) (1966), for example, presents monochromatic panels of metallic pink divided by a vertical aluminum strip that connects with the square frame. Though suggestive of a diptych, the aluminum frame and strip contain the work as a single painting/object. Acrylic metallic paint reflects light that moves with the viewer; however, the artist’s use of the airbrush distances his hand from these surface effects. Kuwayama repeats these relationships in four related works in different colors, asking us to consider their relationship to the ensemble. Other works in this exhibition contain a variety of surfaces and geometries, yet modulations of form and color must be considered individually and as a compositional whole, reflecting Kuwayama’s statement that “ideas, thoughts, philosophy, reasons, meanings, even the humanity of the artist, do not enter into the work at all. There is only the art itself. That is all.”

An original member of the Pattern and Decoration movement, applied and decorative art practices are often the basis for Kozloff’s large-scale public and fine art works. Since the 1990s, she has been using maps and globes to explore issues of social and institutional injustice.

Prints for this series were made with Fran Flaherty at the Digital Art Studio, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; additional prints were produced at the Advanced Media Studio, NYU with the Morgan R. Levy.

New York – Photographs of women by Neil Selkirk, known for his powerful and uncompromising portraiture, will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from March 19 – May 2, 2015. Certain Women delves into the realm of motherhood, exploring the secrets hidden in faces of the subjects’ common experience. The images were taken from Vermont to the Carolinas, and New York to Montana, between 1991 and 2009. A hand-bound, limited-edition book containing 44 individually signed prints accompanies the exhibition.

In the course of his daily routine as a parent dropping his children off at school in Lower Manhattan, Selkirk was continually struck by the stature and bearing of his female contemporaries, the mothers of his generation who – in juggling jobs, family, and the illusion of personal fulfillment – were now suddenly, for the first time, expected to be able to have it all. The project grew into a series of extended road trips, eventually spanning nearly 20 years and much of the country.

Selkirk selected his subjects at random. The only requirement was that the each of the women had a child between the ages of 10 and 20. Selkirk felt that after 10 years of motherhood, the experience had left its mark and the wisdom gained from being a parent was fully ingrained.

The images in Certain Women are a unique marriage of photographic techniques. Selkirk used a huge wood and leather view camera, developed the 11x14 inch film in his darkroom, then scanned the negatives (fortunately before Hurricane Sandy flooded his studio). He printed the film digitally using a remarkable number of grey inks. The combination of the large film negatives and the unprecedented tonal range of the archival digital printing technology produced images of unusual depth. The large prints were then embedded in massive thick slabs of glass, and appear to float off the wall in a state of permanent suspension.

About Neil Selkirk
Born in London in 1947, Neil Selkirk won a British Arts Council award to photograph New York in 1968. As a passionate documentarian with an immigrant’s discerning eye for the wonders and anomalies of his adopted land, his photographs quickly drew assignments from major magazines including Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Interview, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and the premier issues of Wired, Paper, Colors, and Spy. In 2005 he directed the documentary film: Who is Marvin Israel?, which premiered at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has published three books of photographs: 1000 on 42nd Street, 2000, See No Evil, 2006, and Lobbyists, 2007. His photographs are in major U.S. museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He is the only person ever authorized to make posthumous prints of the work of Diane Arbus.

About Howard Greenberg Gallery
Howard Greenberg Gallery is located at 41 East 57th Street, Suite 1406, New York. The gallery exhibits at The ADAA Art Show, The Armory Show, The AIPAD Photography Show New York, The London Photograph Show, Art Basel, Paris Photo, and Art Basel Miami Beach. For more information, contact 212-334-0010 or info@howardgreenberg.com or visit www.howardgreenberg.com.

New York – WILLIAM KLEIN + BROOKLYN, an exhibition of new color photographs by one of the leading photographers of the 20th century, will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from March 19 – May 2, 2015. The exhibition presents nearly 50 images from the summer of 2013 is accompanied by a book BROOKLYN + KLEIN (Contrasto, Spring 2015). An opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, March 19, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Klein employed his motto “no rules, no limits, no holding back” to capture the exuberance of Brooklyn life. From the West Indian Day Parade to a Hasidic prayer and study session to a Williamsburg tattoo parlor, Klein has portrayed Brooklyn in all of its lively cultural diversity.

“We were over in Brighton Beach, and I photographed a store, which was Pakistani, and then the store next to it was Russian, and the store next to that was Mexican, and one store said ‘Islamic Beauty.’ This is amazing,” Klein notes in a short film produced by Sony, which commissioned the project.

For many weeks, the artist wandered the streets, worked days and nights, shot from the window of his car, and roved the beaches of Coney Island and Brighton. With these images, Klein has created a frenzied kaleidoscope of Brooklyn in his masterly style.

Klein’s assignment from Sony was to shoot Brooklyn exclusively for the company’s Global Imaging Ambassadors program, an initiative uniting some of the best photographers around the world in the aim of storytelling. Exhibitions of the photographs have been held in Paris and London.

About William Klein
Born in New York City in 1928, William Klein’s legendary career began in 1954 when Alexander Liberman, then the creative director of Condé Nast, saw an exhibition of Klein’s work in Paris, where Klein was living and had briefly studied with the painter Fernand Léger.

Returning to New York as a photographer for Vogue magazine, Klein let loose on the city, taking fashion photography in a whole new direction; capturing beauty and the grotesque all within wide-angle and telephoto shots. Taking the models out of the studio and onto the streets, his revolutionary techniques pioneered a new vision.

Widely acknowledged as a significant innovator in the history and design of the photo book, Klein published his first book Life is Good and Good For You in New York in 1956. Capturing the rough and tumble of daily life, Klein’s brutally honest images caused a major a sensation. Three more books were published, each with photography from a different city, Rome in 1958-59, followed in 1964 by Moscow and Tokyo 1961 (reissued in limited edition in 2014 by Akio Nagasawa Publishing).

William Klein is also an accomplished and highly respected filmmaker, beginning his foray into the moving image in 1958 with the first Pop film Broadway by Light. Klein went on to produce feature films and documentaries including Qui-Êtes Vous Polly Maggoo?, 1966, a satire about the fashion world; Far From Vietnam, 1967; Muhammad Ali, The Greatest, 1969; and The Little Richard Story, 1980. His last film to date Messiah, 1999, reveals on an epic scale a summary of the themes present throughout his artistic career.

The recipient of numerous awards, Klein was honored with a Commander of Arts and Letters in France in 1989, the Medal of the Century by the Royal Photographic Society in London in 1999, and he received the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. In 2012, he received the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the Sony World Photography Awards.

Work by William Klein is in the collections of many institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

At the age of 86, Klein continues to live and work in Paris, France.

About Howard Greenberg Gallery
Howard Greenberg Gallery is located at 41 East 57th Street, Suite 1406, New York. The gallery exhibits at The ADAA Art Show, The Armory Show, The AIPAD Photography Show New York, The London Photograph Show, Art Basel, Paris Photo, and Art Basel Miami Beach. For more information, contact 212-334-0010 or info@howardgreenberg.com or visit www.howardgreenberg.com.

The McKee Gallery is pleased to announce a ten-year survey exhibition of Daisy Youngblood’s sculpture, opening Thursday, April 2, 6-8 pm, through Saturday, May 30, 2015.

Youngblood has produced 14 sculptures over the last decade, in low-fire clay or in bronze cast from clay, all of which will be on view. The work over the last 10 years reflects changes in her approach to making sculpture. Although she has used pieces of wood in many earlier works, found objects in nature are more decisively incorporated into the clay and the scale has increased. Stones are used as heads, eyes, noses, torsos; a long concave piece of oak is a body. They are all equal parts of a living whole for Daisy Youngblood.

The earliest piece in the exhibition is Budhi 2006, a moving portrait in clay of her daughter with Down’s syndrome; then Bear 2007, a gentle spirit in clay; Venus 2007, a fierce crouching figure that could be animal or human, blurring the lines between them; a series of orangutans in motion: Oladio 2009, Leaping I and Leaping II 2010. Anubis and the First Chakra 2012 is a major statement of materials and essence. There are three complex sculptures in different Yoga poses, and lastly, Chandrika 2014, a long reclining figure, seemingly moribund. The strong influence of Buddhism is evident.

The artist writes about these last works: “Some of the sculptures over the last ten years show signs of despair, anger, fright, none of which were intentional, but the feelings leaked through. I think the sculptures can be seen as my slow, persistent awakening to the realities of what may be in store for us on a rapidly heating planet.”

Youngblood was born in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1945. She studied at The Richmond Professional Institute, Virginia, and received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. She has lived in New York City, Bisbee, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and currently lives and works in Costa Rica. As she writes, “I live in Costa Rica on the side of a mountain with my husband and daughter. A big river runs around the farm, the old forest still breathes above us. I go down a steep trail to my studio every day, it’s a place of large boulders and riverlets.”